Fiscal Cliff: Drink Some Eggnog and Deal With It

"Some years ago, we confronted partisan gridlock. Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton got together to reach an agreement. It was very controversial. And Newt Gingrich said, and this is October 20th, 1998: 'So I say to each and every member of this House, unless they have a plan that they think can get 218 votes over here and pass through a filibuster in the Senate and get signed, there is no responsible vote except yes,'" Hoyer said. "America expects its Congress to get to yes."

But Boehner can't even get his caucus to yes.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) was in the caucus room last night, and told CNN this morning the scene was "unlike anything I have seen in my brief 10 years here at the nation's capitol."

"I will tell you this. I spent the last 48 hours talking to people at home and talking to Tea Party leaders, talking to municipal leaders, state leaders and just regular rank-and-file folks. And, their comments to me were always the same. They would say, stay strong. And I would say, what do you mean by that?" Burgess said. "They would say, well, don't cave. Well, what does that mean? They said, well, cut spending and that is, you know, the bottom line message that everyone delivered to me. I said, OK, but we're not talking about spending. This is the tax piece. And when I would explain things like the permanent relief from the alternative minimum tax, the certainty of tax rates for everyone who earned under a million dollars a year."

"Actually, people began to listen to that and say, well, you know, that's not so bad. But I guess with the timeline involved, the speaker and the House leadership just did not have time to develop that story. And you know, here's the news flash for you. We don't always communicate that well on the Republican side."

Burgess said the result may have been different if the negotiations were televised on C-SPAN instead of unfolding "in some secret room."

"Very difficult job for the speaker to go down there and go up against the full majesty of the president of the United States and expect to come out a winner," he said.

Rep. Steve Latourette (R-Ohio) said the B-bomb showed the weakening and "continuing dumbing down" of the GOP.

"We are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward," he said. "If you're not a governing majority, you're not going to be a majority."

Burgess stressed, though, that Obama "can't keep shutting us out."

"And remember, there are 435 House members. Look, I don't know what will happen next. I rather expect Harry Reid will send something back over to us," he said. "But remember, tax bills have to originate in the House of Representatives. This is going to be a tough slog."

Reid has repeatedly insisted that, if given the opportunity, the majority of House members would vote for the Senate Democrats' Obama-approved tax-cut extension for just the middle class.

"There’s still time for Speaker Boehner to hit the brakes and avoid the cliff," he said. "The Senate-passed bill would protect 98 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses from crippling tax hikes while President Obama and the speaker work toward a comprehensive agreement."

One of the conservatives opposing Boehner's plan was Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas), who was yanked off the Budget and Agriculture committees by the speaker for the 113th Congress -- an early December move that the congressman saw as a "petty," "vindictive" strike against conservatives.

"I am a conservative, and I make no bones about it. My constituents are very conservative as well, and they've been so frustrated that leadership in the House right now, the speaker has been talking about tax increases. That's all we've been talking about," Huelskamp said this morning on MSNBC.

"It's usually John Boehner dive left, and conservatives on the outside, and at the end of the day they'll call the Democrats and say, 'We'll get the votes to piece that together.'"